How 90’s Teen Dramas and Walt Disney Ruined My Life.

So here I am again. Sitting alone in my room with a box of kleenex listening to Mazzy Star and wondering where I went wrong. With puffy eyes I retrace my steps exactly in order to find out when and why I fell so hard. Yes, it’s true my heart has been trampled by yet another dreamy eyed indie neerdowell. Perhaps it wasn’t an ideal situation, nor was it very logical to think one can maintain a relationship over skype. Serious conversations made scrambled and robotic from poor internet connections wasn’t exactly romantic. Still, It would’ve worked in the movies God damnit! And this is the exact point where I pause and think oh God. To my horror I make the realization that I have based my entire romantic existence on movies. Fuck.

The first man I ever loved was almost thirty years older than me. I was three and he was married. I loved him because he was tall with dark hair and his name was Eric. So naturally, I believed that he was Prince Eric and that’s why he was married to a red head who I was insanely jealous of. Eric didn’t love me back, which looking back was probably for the best. We couldn’t have had a lot in common considering I was only recently potty trained. In time my mother learned how to keep a better eye on me and I left Eric and his red headed wife alone, but unfortunately I never stopped looking for my prince. The kind of man who would risk anything to be with me and who would show me new worlds. These kind of men don’t exist and neither do magic carpets.

As I grew the media’s effect on me only thickened and became more powerful. I never let anything be organic, I had incredibly high expectations from the very beginning. These expectations only intensified after seeing The Notebook for the first time. It was after this, that I assumed that all boys would find snorting after laughing endearing and adorable. For the record, they don’t and they shouldn’t. Snorting is actually kind of disgusting and more awkward than anything. This “quirky” little habit only furthered me from the dating pool.

As anyone who reads my blog would know losing my virginity was less than perfect thanks to tequila and an hour of begging on his part. Movies like She’s All That andTitanic made this important step into adult hood look wonderful. When in reality it was five minutes of pain followed by my undeniable urge to become a lesbian. The Media made me believe that having sex with someone meant that we were dating and we were going to live happily ever after. As you can see I was set up for disaster from the start. Sometimes when I’m feeling masochistic I think back to the hormonal greasy boys I slept with in high school and shutter. MTV made it look so good while James Cameron led us to believe that sex and romance were the same thing. Wow, who were they fooling? Well apparently, they had me pretty fooled.

“You had me at hello.” is a line that I would most definitely have fallen for. Unfortunately I’ve fallen for worse, “I like the way your hand feels in my hand” was probably the one I’m most ashamed of. That’s the truth of the matter, though. I will continuously fall for cheesy lines because I seem to be the only one unaware that they’re lines. This leads me to wonder if romance actually exists at all. Or if perhaps it was simply created by the writers of Freddie Prince Junior movies and Coldplay. How am I supposed to settle for simple conversation when ideas of deep devotional speech have been crammed into my brain?

While society force feeds young girls unrealistic expectations of love it’s only telling young boys that sex is meaningless and fun. Women develop whole hearts filled with romantic hope whereas men are discouraged from expressing any kind of feeling above their waist. Romance and sex sells. We thirst for it, crave it, and stuff ourselves with it uncontrollably. When we find that reality doesn’t pay off, it tells us to get in our sweat pants and cry into a brownie sundae and continuously play our man-hating mantra. My advice to any ladies who identify themselves as hopeless romantics is to let the flower petals fall and focus on yourself. When the handsome guy across the bar gazes longingly into your eyes, know that it’s probably not love at first sight. He’s most likely drunk and using you as a stable point to collect his balance.